Gavin Newsom wants to hear from Jerry Brown

Mayor Gavin Newsom talked and talked and talked to a couple hundred Marin residents gathered at the San Rafael Community Center Monday night, telling them about his track record in San Francisco and his ideas for governing California.

Pam Gould/Moremarin.com

The gubernatorial hopeful in San Rafael

He’s big on a constitutional convention, an oil severance tax and raising the tobacco tax. He thinks term limits and Prop. 13 need to be reconsidered, and that the vehicle license fee needs to be reinstated.

His long-winded answers (hint: if you hear Newsom say “final point,” it almost never is) were peppered with digs at his challenger for the Democratic nomination, Attorney General Jerry Brown.

Newsom said he doesn’t think the 71-year-old is nearly as adept at on-line social networking as he is. (“I don’t sense that it’s as natural and intuitive (for Brown),” Newsom said.)

But most of his Brown criticisms were focused on the Attorney General’s refusal so far to accept Newsom’s offer of 11 substantive debates on particular issues – and Brown’s continued excuse that he’s not officially running for governor.

“I think you’re being so short-shrifted I can’t even tell you,” Newsom said. “I don’t know where he stands on nine out of 10 issues. At least you know where I stand.”

Some may have felt they heard a little too much from Newsom. In introducing his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom (looking trim in a short, dark dress and heels after giving birth last month and clutching a big cup of coffee), Newsom said, “This is the first time she has gotten out of the house since we had our baby. I don’t want to torture you, but if she has to leave early it’s because of something called pumping.”

She didn’t get out of her seat the entire time. But by the end, she was clearly ready to go as her husband ate up praise from audience members and posed for pictures with them. “I miss her so much!” the new mom said of daughter Montana. “I’m dying to see her.”